Lukashenko
\nPresident Vladimir Putin denied plans to absorb Belarus as he paid a rare visit Monday to the country whose strongman assisted his invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
\nPutin flew into Minsk with his defense and foreign ministers in tow, hours after Russian forces launched a swarm of attack drones at critical infrastructure in Kyiv, which provoked emergency blackouts in a dozen regions.
\nPutin said that Russia and Belarus \u2014 slapped with new Western sanctions since President Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner of a sixth term in 2020 elections widely criticized as fraudulent \u2014 were \u201cunited by a common history and spiritual values.\u201d
\nPutin called the countries \u201cclosest allies and strategic partners\u201d but said that rumors that Russia sought to take over Belarus came from \u201cill-wishers.\u201d
\n\u201cRussia has no interest in absorbing anyone, this would simply make no sense,\u201d Putin said.
\nIn Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price scoffed at Putin\u2019s remarks.
\n\u201cI think a statement like that has to be treated as the height of irony coming from a leader who is seeking at the present moment \u2014 right now \u2014 to violently absorb his other, peaceful next-door neighbor,\u201d Price said.
\n\u201cWe have seen the Lukashenko regime essentially cede its sovereignty \u2014 cede its independence \u2014 to Russia,\u201d Price said.
\nBelarus has let Russian forces use its territory and hours before Putin touched down in Minsk, Moscow released footage of drills with Belarusian forces including tank maneuvers and sniper fire at a snow-dusted training ground.
\nLukashenko urged closer military cooperation and said that Russia and Belarus are \u201copen for dialogue with other states, including European ones.\u201d
\n\u201cI hope that soon they will listen to the voice of reason,\u201d Lukashenko said.
\nSpeculation mounted ahead of the Russian leader\u2019s visit that he would pressure Lukashenko to send troops to Ukraine to fight alongside the Russians after Moscow suffered a string of defeats in nearly 10 months of fighting.
\nKremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, however, dismissed the reports \u201cas totally stupid, groundless fabrications.\u201d
\nIn October, Belarus announced the formation of a joint regional force with Moscow with several thousand Russian servicemen arriving in the ex-Soviet country.
\nNew explosions near Kyiv
\nThe drone attacks wounded three people near Kyiv. They came as Russia said it shot down several US-made missiles over its airspace near Ukraine.
\n\u201cI first heard the air raid siren… I thought there is going to be a drone attack. For the first time, it scared me,\u201d said Natalia Dobrovolska, a 68-year-old resident of Kyiv.
\nShe described hearing multiple explosions before power shut off in her building in western Kyiv. Officials said Russia had flown in 35 attack drones nationwide, including 23 over Kyiv.
\nUkraine said it downed 30 of the aerial weapons, including Iranian-made \u201cShaheds,\u201d which have pummelled the capital in recent weeks.
\nMayor Vitali Klitschko said critical infrastructure facilities were damaged while regional authorities said nine homes had been scarred by the attacks.
\nUkraine has experienced frequent and deadly aerial attacks. After a series of battlefield setbacks, Moscow stepped up its aerial campaign to target the country\u2019s energy grid.
\nRussia \u2018must fail\u2019
\nWith winter setting in, missile and drone attacks have plunged cities around the country into darkness, and severed water and heat supplies to millions of Ukrainians.
\nSpeaking to the leaders of several NATO countries via video link on Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Ukraine\u2019s allies to supply its military with more weapons.
\n\u201cRussian aggression can and must fail. And our task now is to accelerate it,\u201d he told the leaders assembled in Riga.
\nHe said in a late-night address Sunday that some 9 million of Ukraine\u2019s estimated 40 million people had their electricity restored after Russia\u2019s previous missile barrage last week.
\nGas price cap
\nThe West has sought to keep the pressure on Russia. European Union ministers, after months of wrangling, on Monday decided on a price gap on Russian natural gas, following an agreement that came in force this month on Russian oil.
\nThe price ceiling on natural gas was fixed at 180 euros ($190) per megawatt hour, although the European Commission said it may suspend the cap if \u201cthe risks outweigh the benefits\u201d following protracted negotiations involving Germany, the continent\u2019s largest economy which backs Ukraine but is highly dependent on imported energy.
\n\u201cIt wasn\u2019t an easy thing to achieve,\u201d Maltese Energy Minister Miriam Dalli said.
\nThe Kremlin lashed out at the latest measure, with Peskov saying the cap was \u201cunacceptable\u201d and a violation of market processes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lukashenko President Vladimir Putin denied plans to absorb Belarus as he paid a rare visit Monday to the country whose strongman assisted his invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Putin flew into Minsk with his defense and foreign ministers in tow, hours after Russian forces launched a swarm of attack drones at critical infrastructure in Kyiv, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302471,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-302440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n